{"id":17225,"date":"2021-05-27T13:39:43","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T13:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/?p=17225"},"modified":"2022-03-02T12:12:28","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T12:12:28","slug":"long-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/topics\/health\/long-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Long COVID"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\u201cLong COVID\u201d or \u201congoing COVID\u201d are terms given to those who remain ill with COVID-19 for a period of time longer than four weeks.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The National Institute of Health Care Excellence<\/a> (NICE) in the United Kingdom describes two clinical definitions for long COVID:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> (CDC) in the United States refer to \u201cpost-COVID conditions\u201d as a wide range of new, returning, or ongoing health problems people can experience more than four weeks after first being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What evidence is there for levels of long COVID in the UK?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n Long COVID is an emerging phenomenon that is not yet fully understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The incidence of long COVID in the UK has been tracked and measured in two ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Counting the number of people presenting to a GP with long COVID symptoms<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n The primary care records for people registered with GPs in England were analysed through the OpenSAFELY tool<\/a> to detect incidences of the 15 SNOMED CT codes<\/a> (introduced in November 2020) used to indicate diagnosis, referral, and assessment related to long COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of 25 April 2021, analysis of the medical records of 58.0m people in England found 23,273 patients with codes indicating a long COVID diagnosis. While equivalent to 53.7 instances of long COVID per 100,000 people (or 0.05% of the English population), the study\u2019s authors suggest that this could be a substantial underestimate:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Long COVID coding in primary care is low compared with early reports of long COVID prevalence. This may reflect under-coding, sub-optimal communication of clinical terms, under-diagnosis, a true low prevalence of long COVID diagnosed by clinicians, or a combination of factors.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Surveying a sample of the population, asking them to self report long COVID symptoms<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Office National Statistics\u2019 COVID-19 Infection Survey<\/a> tracks the incidence of COVID-19 in the UK, by conducting tests on a representative sample of the population. It also asks participants the following question regarding long COVID<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Would you describe yourself as having \u201clong COVID\u201d, that is, you are still experiencing symptoms more than 4 weeks after you first had COVID-19, that are not explained by something else?<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n By 15 May 2021, 233,760 households and 499,298 individuals were registered for the survey (approximately 0.75% of the UK population).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The survey includes 6,578 households and 14,121 individuals in Northern Ireland (again, approximately 0.75% of the total population).<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time of writing, the most up to date ONS survey data on long COVID<\/a> covers the four-week period up to 6 March 2021. The table below summarises the estimated people in the UK and the four nations suffering with long COVID. Two figures are calculated: people who report long COVID of any duration; and those who report long COVID of 12 or more weeks after getting COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n